Rose: Dorothy, in times like these, you have to hold onto your faith, just like Hans Gluckenflunken, St. Olaf's greatest explorer.
Dorothy: Rose, please, let me have a little recovery time before you start a St. Olaf story.
Rose: You see, Hans Gluckenflunken set out for Florida to find the Fountain of Intelligence. Unfortunately, when he got to Duluth, he took a left instead of a right and he wound up back in St. Olaf. That's how he got his nickname, Wrong Way Gluckenflunken.
Dorothy: Rose, how is this a story about faith?
Rose: Well, when he got back, it was the dead of winter. Tired and hungry, but still clinging to his belief that he would find the Fountain of Intelligence, he saw the miracle water trickling out of the ground, and he fell to his knees and tasted it. Unfortunately, it was a broken sewer main. Two days later, he died of cholera.
Dorothy: What is the point, Rose?
Rose: He was positive he had found the Fountain of Intelligence. In fact, his dying words were, "I think I've learned something from this."

Rose: I can relate to the festivities part, Sophia. All our children were conceived on special St. Olaf holidays. Adam was conceived on the Day of the Princess Pig when they had the pig crowning, and Jeanella was conceived on Hay Day. That's the day we St. Olafians celebrate hay.
Dorothy: Rose, do you think you could wrap this up before Rebecca goes into labor?
Rose: Then there was the Day of the Wheat when everybody came to town dressed as sandwiches. Charlie and I forgot to put cheese between us and before I knew it, there was Kirsten.

Rose: The reason these confidence men don't get caught is because people are embarrassed to come forward and admit they were conned.
Blanche: I'm sorry, Rose. I just can't.
Rose: Well, perhaps this little story might make you change your mind. Back in St. Olaf there was a shepherd boy who tended his flock on the hill above the town. A wolf kept coming down and stealing his sheep, but the boy never caught him doing it. Because he never saw it happening, he became known around St. Olaf as the boy who didn't cry wolf. Anyway, one day the townspeople heard the boy on the hill yelling, "Wolf, Wolf. " Well, they all figured, if the boy never cried wolf when the wolf was there, if he yelled wolf now, it stood to reason the wolf wasn't there.
Sophia: Boy, nothing gets by you people.
Rose: Damn straight. It was a bear. A huge, ferocious, grizzly bear.
Blanche: What happened to the boy?
Rose: He became known as the boy who cried continuously.

Rose: I think it's great that you want to have your baby here. Boy, in St. Olaf, the mother was always with the daughter when she gave birth. And if the mother was out of town, then the mother of the father was there. And if she was out of town, then we'd call Lucky Gunther.
Dorothy: Oh, what the hell. She has a birthday coming up. Why, Rose?
Rose: After the thresher accident, they replaced Lucky's arm with a forceps. Yep. Lucky Gunther. He was in charge of delivering babies and handing out corn at the Rotary picnics.
Dorothy: Shut up, Rose.

Rose: Well, is everybody ready for a spirited game of Googenspritzer?
Blanche: Googenspritzer? You said we were gonna play Monopoly.
Rose: I said it was like Monopoly, only instead of Atlantic City, they use St. Olaf geography.
Blanche: Well, I'll be the bank.
Rose: Oh, good. There's the cashbox.
Blanche: Well, honey, this is empty.
Rose: Oh, I know. The St. Olaf Bank was one of the first savings and loans to go under.
Dorothy: Bad management?
Rose: Bad contractor. They built the bank on marshland, and it sank. All that was left were a few deposit slips and a pen with a chain attached to it, floating in the muck.

Rose: Don't you think it's crazy that Blanche is actually gonna marry Jamie?
Dorothy: Why? They practically grew up together. Rose, they've known each other most of their lives so it's very comfortable. He's like an old friend.
Rose: But he's her late husband's brother. I remember back in St. Olaf when Inga Engstran married her late husband's brother Lars, and the whole town was shocked. Of course, that could've been because at the time Inga was on trial for her late husband's dismemberment.
Dorothy: It was probably a factor.
Rose: The trial went on for months. Attorney's fees cost her an arm and a leg.
Sophia: Rose, get to where they steal the brain out of the dead body and sew it into your head.
Rose: So anyway, she got a suspended sentence.
Sophia: They let her go?
Rose: No, they hanged her.
Sophia: I'm going to sleep. I don't know how long I've got, but I deserve better company in my final years.

Dorothy: Oh, now, that is really odd. I mean, if he's selling encyclopedias, why didn't he try to sell us a set?
Rose: And you know what else is so strange about it? He didn't bring them in.
Blanche: Rose. No encyclopedia salesman lugs around 26 volumes door-to-door.
Rose: Are you kidding? In St. Olaf they carry 52.
Blanche: Why?
Rose: Balance.
Dorothy: Rose, why don't they just carry 13 in each hand?
Rose: Excuse me. I have to make a phone call.

Rose: We had a Festival of the Dancing Virgins in St. Olaf, too. Every year, we'd go down to the lake, and they'd be flopping around on the dock. Oh, no, wait. That was the Festival of the Dancing Sturgeons.
Dorothy: What is wrong with you, woman?

Miles: The point is, it all would have been behind me, but he escaped. The government had to put me in the Witness Protection Program. Gave me a new name, new job, whole new identity.
Rose: I don't know what to say. I can't believe this story you're telling.
Dorothy: But you can believe the story about Henrik Felderstuhl, St. Olaf's half-man, half-grasshopper?
Rose: Dorothy, I'm telling you, when he rubbed his legs together, you'd swear you were on a camping trip.

Blanche: I guess it's just like that old saying: opposites attract.
Rose: Oh, that's very true. Back in St. Olaf, Ollie Canudenspringle and his wife Bridget were opposites in every way. I mean, he was fat, she was thin. He was neat, she was sloppy. He was tall, she was short. He was cheap, she was extravagant. He was...
Sophia: Opposites. We get the picture.
Rose: Well, anyway, I'll never forget the time they sang at our annual talent show, right after the herring juggling act.
Blanche: You mean to tell me that somebody actually juggled herring.
Rose: No. It was the herring who did the juggling. Tiny little Ginsu knives. Really very dangerous. I mean, one false move, they could have filleted themselves.